CULTURE EDITION
As the third speaker in the annual lecture series addressing Virginia Woolf’s seminal essay, honorary patron of the Cambridge Literary Festival Frances Spalding explores its timeless appeal A Room of One’s Own LITERARY FESTIVAL “I stood there in that magnificent
In 1929, Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One’s Own – an essay
room, watching two young women, arm in arm, happily chatting away to each other. I was quite struck by how times have changed,” she says. Despite the changing times, Virginia’s essay retains its relevance almost a century later. At this year’s Literary Festival, Frances will be the third writer to deliver the now-annual lecture on A Room of One’s Own . “This essay just has so much to say to so many different people,” she says. “I remember being moved to tears when I first read it because of its sensitivity to issues I’d experienced that I had never been able to articulate in the way she does.” In her lecture, Frances hopes to convey some of the magic that can be found in Virginia’s writing, while celebrating the foresight of Penguin founder Allen Lane in approaching the writer’s husband Leonard for permission to republish the essay following her death in 1941. “The powerful effect she’s had on the world is truly extraordinary,” says Frances. “When people talk about success today, it’s usually defined by attention from the media, financial gain and so on, but that wasn’t what she was writing for. However, she was also realistic about the need to be able to earn money – she didn’t undervalue it and recognised the material needs of women writers.” A Room of One’s Own lecture takes place on 27 April at 6pm on the TTP Stage at the Cambridge Union
born from the lectures she had been invited to deliver at Newnham and Girton Colleges the previous year. In the work, Virginia recounts her experience of being denied access to Trinity College’s Wren Library due to her sex, which inspired her quote ‘lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind’. When eminent art historian, critic and biographer Frances Spalding first read the essay, this was the very first place she went, to try and lay eyes on the exact manuscript the author had been prohibited from seeing.
ROOM TO THINK Frances Spalding will discuss Virginia Woolf’s 1929 essay
Diane Abbott 26 April, 12 noon Cambridge Union
Jacqueline Wilson 26 April, 12 noon Palmerston Room
Emma Barnett 26 April, 6pm Cambridge Union
Lindsey Hilsum 27 April, 8pm Cambridge Union
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK APRIL 2025 31
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